Hello, everybody! Well…here we are…last official chapter and I'm climbing the walls because I'm not sure it came out as I wanted it to, but I guess that's a kind of feeling we all get, right? Right? Right? nervouslaughescalatingintohystericallaugh ahem…
Well, again thanks to all the readers. I love you, guys (you, you, you…and you too!), more than I can probably express with words. I hope the "moment" won't disappoint you, but hey, this said, don't forget that there's an epilogue and what I call epilogue is usually a normal chapter with a last dose of "moments".
Anyway, enough with the captatio benevoletiae, I hope you like it!! And If you don't, don't hesitate to tell me (yeah, I'm meaning especially you ;-)). Thanks Em for your help!!
On with the story:
-9-
When I got back, the hotel room was dark, and our stuff was scattered all around. I hadn't even bothered to make a quick stop to pack my things when I left, which to be fair, had been just plain stupid.
"Sammy?" I called.
I switched on the lights and quickly looked around the room.
"Sam?" I called again, my attention darting to the bathroom door.
Since I got no answer, I walked to the bathroom and verified that it was empty. Back in the middle of the empty room, a familiar sense of anxiety crept through my stomach. I had left Sam alone in front of his burnt apartment expecting…what? For him to walk back to a motel that was on the edge of town? What if something had happened to him on the way? What if he had gone back inside the apartment and repeated the ritual? What if…?
Suddenly, my cell phone rang. I was surprised by the sound and ended up turning my head so fast I almost pulled a muscle. The phone was on the desk, just where it had been since morning.
So, I hadn't taken the cell with me either. Just one more stupid thing to add to the list.
I thought the call might be from Sam, but I didn't recognize the number on the screen. I frowned and hesitated with my finger hovering over the talk button. Then I saw I already had about a dozen missed calls from the same number, and the trepidation coiling inside my belly tightened its icy grip.
"Hello?"
"Dean? Is that you?"
"Yeah, who's this?"
"It's Simon. Thank God you finally picked up!"
oooooooooooooOooooooooooooo
Simon's apartment was a medium-sized, second-story flat that was well-furnished and seeped normalcy through every crack of paint. It had the typical happily sloppy decor of a student's apartment and was a statement of the eclecticism of its owner's tastes rather than an example of matching curtains and upholstery.
At any other time, I would have cringed at the coziness or maybe would have thought of some smartass remark that would express my derision of this type of life. But in that moment, the only thought that came to my mind was how cold Sam's apartment had been in comparison to Simon's. It was as if there had been much less of my brother there than there was of his friend here.
Obviously distressed, Simon let me in right away. He hadn't told me much on the phone, only that Sam was at his place and he needed me to come.
"Where is he?"
One of the girls I had met on the night of the fire—I think Martha was her name—was sitting on the couch. She stood up and crossed her arms as soon as I got in.
"He's in the spare bedroom, in the back." Simon answered, nodding towards a door down the hall.
"What happened?" I asked, repressing an urge to bolt to the door.
"I'm not sure…Martha found him outside of his…what's left of his apartment. He was just standing on the sidewalk, like catatonic," Simon babbled.
I swallowed hard. I had pictured Sam going back to the motel and tearing my duffel bag apart in a fit. I had pictured him clenching his fists and walking back into the burnt apartment to resume the summoning of the demon so that he could face it, as he said he would, without my help. Hell, when Simon had called I had simply imagined Sam had opted to call his friends and spend the night with them.
What I never imagined was that Sam would simply stay where I had left him. Never that. The idea of my brother frozen and alone in the middle of the street had been completely out of the question.
"Is he alright?"
"He's got cuts on his arms," Martha intervened dryly. "He said that you were gone and hasn't said a word since. Hasn't eaten or moved! We've been calling you for hours! Where were you?" she asked, accusingly.
I glared at her, and she glared right back at me, unflinchingly. I was the one who averted my eyes first.
"Martha…" Simon chided. "Please, Sam doesn't need this."
She glowered at him for a beat but was appeased by her friend's pleading stare and sat back down on the couch with tears in her eyes. Simon turned back to me.
"I'm sorry about this. We thought…We thought he tried to…"
I nodded before he had a chance to finish the sentence. It wasn't hard to envision what they might have thought after seeing the blood on Sam's arms, and there was no need for any of us to conjure up that particular image right now.
"We didn't know what to do, and we couldn't find you," he finished guiltily.
I could see they had been worried sick, and I instantly felt miserable. Of course Martha was wary about me; I hadn't really given her any reason not to be.
"No, man, I'm sorry. We…we had this fight and I just…"
"No need to explain," Simon said, shaking his head. "I knew you couldn't be gone."
I breathed out an unsteady laugh. How could he have known, when Sam had obviously believed the contrary and I…I honestly hadn't been so sure myself?
"Do you mind if I—" Feeling obliged to ask Simon's permission, I indicated the door to the room where Sam was.
"Sure," he said, and smiled. "Go ahead. You need anything, just yell."
oooooooooooooOooooooooooooo
Unsure of what I was going to find, I entered the bedroom cautiously. The only light in the room came from a small bedside lamp. There was a bed in the middle of the room and a desk against the wall opposite the door on the right and a small dresser on the left. Heavy curtains were drawn over the window that was above the desk.
After a quick scan I spotted Sam's mop of hair behind the bed. He was sitting on the floor with his back against the side of the bed, and he had his knees pulled to his chest and his arms wrapped around them. I let out the breath I had been holding and willed my heart to stop pounding so hard as I closed the door quietly behind me.
I went around the bed slowly, because I didn't want to startle him. And yet every step I took without him registering that there was somebody else in the room was like a knife aimed at my heart. It was impossible that he hadn't heard me already. My brother was a hunter, a very good one.
Maybe he had heard me, but he thought I was Simon or Martha.
Maybe he didn't give a fuck anymore.
"Hey," I whispered, as I towered over his slouched frame.
Sam's shoulders shook slightly, and his fists clenched around his knees, but other than that he didn't move. He wasn't looking at me at all, instead he was staring emptily at the wall in front of him with eyes that were slightly glazed over. I remembered how Simon has described my little brother's state as catatonic, and I had to bite my lower lip hard to swallow down the wave of nausea that rose in my throat at the thought.
"Hey, Sammy?" I called him again as I crouched awkwardly next to him.
Still, my brother didn't react and it took all that I had in me to blink back the tears that stung my eyes. The sight of the cuts on his arms —which had been properly cleaned, either by Martha or Simon— reminded me of how I had wanted to hurt him back in the apartment. Now I could barely bring myself to touch him for fear that I'd break him more than I already had.
"Sam?" I repeated thickly. "C'mon, man, you're scaring me."
I had seen Sam in very dark places before but never like this. In the past, I had known how to pull him out, and he had allowed me to do it. But this time it was my fault. It didn't take a genius to understand he was in shock. Finally, after one week, Sammy had snapped, and it hadn't taken his girlfriend dying above his head, but me ditching him afterwards.
I would have given anything to erase that look from his face. My life for his, my life for Jess'. My life for a single second of seeing some familiar spark lit back in his eyes.
Tentatively, I reached out and ghosted a hand over his shoulder but hesitated as soon as I sensed him tensing under my palm. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second. Then I placed my hand gently over his shoulder, and after a beat I gave him a soft squeeze.
"Sammy?"
His shoulders tensed. I was a second away from pulling my hand away again, but at the last moment I changed my mind. Shaking him definitely wasn't an option, but I needed to reach him somehow. I set my jaw as I cupped his chin, gently but firmly, and forced him to turn his head to me.
"Look.At.Me," I ordered.
Pleaded, really, because seeing him in that condition was killing me. Sam shouldn't be like that, shouldn't look so damn broken.
But then, Jessica shouldn't have died. And probably I shouldn't have come and turned his life upside down after four years. Maybe he shouldn't have left for college in the first place. But then, that shouldn't have been an issue for either of us.
I shouldn't have been so damn terrified to lose him that I ended up pushing him away instead of pulling him closer. I shouldn't be sitting there absolutely helpless because at some point along the way, my own uncertainty had taken from me the ability to understand his grief and get him through it.
I shouldn't be so afraid to let go of a betrayal that really wasn't one; shouldn't be so afraid to let go years of holding back my feelings. I shouldn't be so afraid to question why Winchesters had to be tough, why Winchesters didn't hurt, and why Winchesters didn't need comfort, especially from other Winchesters.
The only one of us who hadn't been born a Winchester had died.
And that shouldn't have happened either.
"Sammy, please. I need you to look at me now, okay?" I muttered hoarsely when his eyes seemed to look right through me. "It's me. It's Dean."
His breath was quiet, almost imperceptible in the silent room. But I still noticed the small catch that came a split second before he blinked confused eyes into focus and finally met my gaze.
"Dean?"
His voice was so small I had to strain to hear him. His tone was achingly dull. And his eyes…They were scarily devoid of…him.
"The one and only," I said, giving him a little, relieved smile.
My poor attempt at humor was lost on my brother, who frowned as if he was hearing me from under water. His lips moved without forming words like he was trying to make sense of something he couldn't understand. I think that, in part, his confusion was what undid me: because being unable to understand something was a kind of distress that my brilliant brother wasn't supposed to feel. Ever. I don't think either of us had been forced to deal with that kind of scenario before.
"Dean," he repeated, his voice merely a whisper as he reached out for me.
I held my breath and remained perfectly still, expectant, as his hand found my shirt and gripped the fabric uncertainly. His fingers flexed, as if they sought some kind of solid reassurance that I wasn't a figment of his imagination.
"Yeah, Sam," I reassured him, "I'm here."
I grasped the hand caught in my shirt and rocked over my heels to kneel in a more stable position. My eyes flickered down to his injured arms, and I took in the band-aids covering the deepest cuts.
"You gave your friends quite a scare," I commented casually. "What are you doing on the floor?"
Sam glued his eyes on the carpet, looking suddenly ashamed. Vunerable. Young.
"I can't move," he muttered.
"What?"
"I- I can't move," he said, a bit louder.
"What do you mean you can't move?" I asked with a frown.
"I can't. I- My…legs won't…" he stuttered, trying to explain.
I figured he meant that he was cramped and brought my hands over his knees, thighs and shins without giving it much thought. As afraid as I had been to touch him before, checking my brother in search of injuries was second nature to me and came without any awkwardness. Sam didn't flinch. Apparently he wasn't in pain. Besides, I felt his muscles responding normally to my touch
"Your legs are fine, Sam," I said, swallowing a bitter taste in my mouth.
Physically, he was all right. But that could only mean that mentally he was worse than I had thought. He probably became aware of that fact too, judging by the shine of alarm that flashed behind his eyes after my words. Sam dragged in a slow, shuddering breath. His eyes remained fastened on mine, and I felt my defenses shatter when they watered.
"What's wrong with me?"
He was scared and had all his barriers down. I could tell by the way his glazed eyes latched onto mine, searching, pleading. I could see him, the real Sam, lurking under the surface and looking at me with such intensity I thought he was trying to breathe in my words. And, truth be told, that was just fine by me, as long as he kept breathing. I didn't want to think what would happen if he slipped a bit deeper over the edge and, just as his legs had decided to stop responding, his lungs gave up and his heart said enough.
I rubbed his thighs and shins gently like I was trying to get them warm and forced a calm voice.
"You're just tired, man. Nothing's wrong with you."
"Something has to be," he countered.
I frowned. Something in his voice told me he wasn't referring to just his legs.
"Why would you think that?"
He looked back up at me with so much pain in his eyes I was amazed he had managed to keep breathing so far. And the worst of it was that I recognized the look. It was the same look he had given me the night of the fire, during those few, agonizing seconds when all his emotions had been in the open before he had shut the world out.
We were back at square one. It was my second chance to get it right.
"Sammy, don't," I said sternly. "Don't you do this to yourself."
He tried to avoid my eyes, but I refused to give in. I had been running from confronting Sam long enough. I took his jaw and forced him to look me in the eye. He complied, but for a second he looked so damn vulnerable that I automatically relaxed my hold so he wouldn't feel trapped.
"Jess' death wasn't your fault."
Sam shook his head and looked down. The tears that had pooled in his eyes quietly started to trickle down his face.
"Hey, hey, hey," I soothed, following my instincts for once and leaning closer to him.
To my surprise, he mimicked my gesture and leaned against me. It was almost too easy, if I think about it now. Back then, I smiled sadly to myself at the sudden certainty that all the time I had wasted waiting for him to tell me what he needed, he was waiting for me to figure it out by myself. To figure out that he still was my baby brother, and that I had had the answers in me all along.
That we both needed to reconnect just the same.
"God…I thought you had left. I- " Sam swallowed again.
"I'm here, Sam. Just…Don't cry, kiddo…"
"I told you to leave," he said, shaking his head weakly. "I told you to leave for good…and you left."
"Ah, c'mon," I teased, "it's not like I ever listen to what you say."
"I'm sorry."
I shook my head, but his long fingers found my sleeves and dug into my arms with an unexpected urgency.
"I'm sorry," he repeated. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
"Shh," I hushed, trying to cut off his tirade. "It's okay."
"Dean…" he said and choked brokenly.
"I hear you, bro," I muttered, mindlessly wiping the trails of his tears with my thumbs. "I'm sorry too."
He hiccupped softly and closed his eyes. I leaned over and rested our foreheads together. Sammy stilled. I could feel his breath, heavy with tears, tickling my face as I ran my fingers through the hair on the back of his neck. We quietly remained like that for a couple of minutes. And I don't know why, but after days of strained and uncomfortable silences, the absence of words wasn't oppressive or uncomfortable anymore. As fucked up as the situation was, it was ours. For once, we weren't hunters, or hardened grown men, or even Winchesters. We were just Dean and Sam. We were human. And we were brothers.
We were closer to Mom.
"Dean?"
"Yeah?"
"I don't…I don't feel so good?" he confessed.
I could have laughed at the naked innocence of his words. At their simplicity after all the times he had repeated that he was fine, lying to us both and fooling no one.
"I know," I sympathized. "But you will. Let me help you to the bed, okay?"
"I'll fall," he whispered, matter-of-factly.
"No, you won't," I said in fierce reassurance.
I won't let you.
While both of us kept our eyes closed, I sensed him swallowing and then taking a soft, quivering intake of air. Finally, he nodded against my forehead and wrapped his long arms around my neck. It was a sweet gesture, almost shy. The pressure of his arms against me was solid and comforting in a way that reminded me of all the times he had climbed onto my lap as a child needing me to soothe his fears away.
What he had never known was that he was the only one able to soothe away mine too. And I had every intention of keeping that a secret as long as I could.
In that very instant, something very intimate that I had tried to outgrow for years, but which still had remained buried deep inside my soul for the last four, untied inside me. All the tenderness we had shared while growing up, when it was him and me against the world, came back to me with such intensity that all I could do to keep the tears at bay was to bury my face in the crook of his shoulder and breathe deeply into it.
Sam sensed my distress and gave the back of my neck a tentative squeeze. I squeezed him back for a long moment and then shifted gently so that I could haul him up.
"Here we go."
My voice cracked, but it didn't matter. I stood up and got Sam on his feet and safely wrapped in my arms. Then I helped him sit on the bed and coaxed him to lie down. He reluctantly let go of me and immediately curled on his side so that he could avoid the sight of the ceiling. I kept a hand on his waist for a second before clearing my throat.
"I'll get you a blanket, okay?" I croaked.
I waited to see him nod and then got up and retrieved a blanket from the closet. In less than a minute I was back by his side and had spread the blanket over his body. Afterwards, I sat on the edge of the bed and swept a hand over his cocooned form before settling it on his head and brushing some hair behind his ear.
"Get some sleep, Sam. It's been a long day."
"Stay," he pleaded. "I'm so sorry, Dean, please…Just stay."
And I could have laughed then too, if I hadn't been crying so hard.
"Not going anywhere, kiddo."
"Promise me."
His voice wavered at the end. There were so much tension and pain trapped inside him that I could feel them radiating off his body and into mine as sharp and clear as if the emotions came from me instead of him.
"I promise."
The moment I said the words, I felt the first real sobs shake his curled frame. Sammy was drowning. And it killed me to think that all that time all he had looked for was my permission to try and get back to the surface.
"I promise, Sammy," I repeated.
He took in a shaky breath and his hands wrapped needily around my wrist. I let his fingers entangle with mine in a blind search for assurance while he burst into tears. I squeezed his hands firmly and just pulled him closer and held him tight through the body-wrenching sobs, as a way to prove I was staying, and wouldn't let go, no matter what.
Until then I hadn't understood the extent of what those four years had stolen not only from me but from both of us. Sam was stubborn, and proud. And he had been just as scared of me as I had been of him.
He hadn't allowed himself to break down until he was completely sure that I'd be there to hold him together and pick up the shattered pieces afterwards. And I was going to have a hard time forgiving myself for whatever part I had had in making him doubt that I would.
oooooooooooooOooooooooooooo
Mmm…not my best breakdown, I guess, for some reason it came out sweeter than "angstier". But I was in a sweet mood?
The epilogue is coming. If you're reading this, thanks again!
xx